


'Till My Dyin' Day

by Fenix21



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2264919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot had secrets...and secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Till My Dyin' Day

**Author's Note:**

> This one got away from me completely--started on an entirely different bent--but I hope you enjoy it regardless. I think it could ultimately use a little fleshing out, so I might come back to it one day, but it stands pretty well for now. I'm not entirely content with the title, so if anyone has a suggestion, spin it my way. 
> 
> I own nothing, just borrowing for a bit.

It took Hardison three years to figure it out. But then he chalked that up to the mathematical fact that you needed at least three instances of anything in order to create or determine a pattern.

The first time, Eliot had just disappeared for three days without a word to anyone except Nate.

The second time, they had just come off the long con, everyone was exhausted, Eliot was sporting bruised ribs and a sour attitude, and he walked out the front door throwing over his shoulder, “I’ll be back in three days.”

The third time was after a client meeting. Nobody really noticed Eliot getting an itch under the collar except Parker, but then only she really would, wouldn’t she? 

“How long is this going to take?” Eliot asked impatiently when Hardison wrapped up the pre-briefing.

“Couple of weeks, tops,” Nate said, sipping at his coffee and looking over the rim of the cup at Eliot like he might almost be waiting for something.

Eliot pushed back from the table. “I’ll be back on Monday.”

So, five days this time, but Hardison’s subconscious didn’t fail to snap onto the pattern once it was established. Same time every year, Eliot disappeared for at least three days.

“But, Eliot, if we don’t move on this guy—,” Hardison started.

But Nate just sliced him a look. That single slow look that said everything was working just exactly like it was supposed to so don’t screw it up now. Everyone stared, baffled, as Eliot vanished out the front door. Again.

The fourth time, Hardison was waiting for it. They were hip deep in planning the con, everything was staged, the mark was primed and ready to go.

Eliot stood up from the dinner he had laid out for all of them after a hard afternoon of research and recon and started clearing the table. Nate casually poured a cup of coffee from the pot on the kitchen island, dosed it with a splash of Irish and looked over at Eliot as he started scraping dishes into the sink. 

“We’ll see you Wednesday, then?” he said quietly.

Eliot looked up, eyes piercing in their momentary shock, but then he just gave a curt nod and continued cleaning up.

“All right, everybody. Day’s work well done,” Nate said a bit louder for everyone else to hear. “Let’s let Mr. Whitmore sit and simmer until, say, Thursday, then we’ll make our move.”

No one objected and Hardison pointedly ignored the sideways look Nate slid his way.

When Eliot left for the evening, Hardison gave him half a wave; nothing that would tip him off he knew it would be a few days before he saw him again. After everyone else cleared out for the evening, Hardison took his phone and his laptop and went back to his apartment further uptown. He tossed a few things into a backpack including his laptop while keeping an eye on his phone and the little blue dot traveling south and west on the map on screen. Everyone on the team had one low-jacked phone they used during cons, but also one for personal use that Hardison had specially shielded so they could _not_ be tracked, by him or any law enforcement agency. He had also solemnly sworn never to put GPS on any of their vehicles or persons. He kept his word…mostly. He understood the need for privacy as much as the next man, but he was honestly worried about Eliot, so he had dropped a spare earbud down between Eliot’s truck seats two days ago in anticipation of his coming three day departure. 

 ***

The trail ended nearly 1,700 miles and a day and a half later just south of Oklahoma City in a quiet little suburb. Hardison stayed well back once they reached town not wanting to trip Eliot’s tracker instincts. Once he’d been stationary for a good hour, Hardison risked driving down a side street and parking behind an innocuous looking sedan so that he had a good view of the house Eliot had parked in front of.

It was ordinary enough. Pretty little split level house on an average neighborhood lot. Hardison looked up the owner of record and found a Mark and Anne Randal who were the happy parents of three kids, two girls and a boy, ages 12, 9, and 5. The boy was the youngest. 

“Poor tyke,” Hardison murmured to himself, thinking back to his younger days at Nana’s house with three older ‘sisters.’ There were a few days out of the month he had really appreciated Nana allowing locks on their bedroom doors.

Hardison spent the morning and early afternoon watching the house. No one came or went. Eliot had apparently vanished inside before Hardison arrived and had not made an appearance since. Around four o’clock, the front door opened and Eliot came out, followed by Anne Randal, and holding the youngest of the Randal brood on his arm. He watched with mild interest as the two girls garbed in soccer gear bounded out the door, preceding their dad whom they appeared to take after in height and surfer blonde hair color, and loaded themselves into the crossover in the driveway and pulled out with waves and thrown kisses. Anne waved affectionately, but Eliot’s eyes were fixed on the boy in his arms. 

Anne turned back to him, putting a hand on his shoulder, her eyes turning sad. She said something that Eliot shook his head to and the boy leaned forward and put his arms around Eliot’s neck and held tight until Anne reached to dislodge him gently. Eliot turned then and got in his truck and drove away without looking back.

*** 

Back in Boston on Tuesday, Nate sat by Hardison’s side in Lucille 2.0 watching Eliot on the security feed Hardison had piggy backed in Whitmore’s building. He pulled out his earbud and set it deliberately by Hardison’s keyboard, but never looked at him. 

“I know what you did last week,” he said quietly enough that his voice wouldn’t carry over the comms through Hardison’s own bud. “I know you did it because you’re worried; but my advice is never to do it again.”

Nate put his earbud back in and continued to watch as Eliot took out two more security guards with jackrabbit punches and a couple of well place elbows. Hardison remained silent. 

*** 

Hardison made the trip the following two years as well.

Eliot took the boy over to the park and they played catch and tag and some kind of modified mini boot camp that involved lots of monkey bars and belly crawling and agility runs through the jungle gym as far as Hardison could tell.

The boy was small for his age, dark hair closer to Eliot’s in color than his sisters’, his complexion ruddier than his mother’s peaches and cream or his dad’s surfer tan. But he was stocky and strong and gave as good as he got when he and Eliot wound up wrestling good naturally in the rubber mulch under the swings at the park.

It was the same both times. Eliot only stayed for part of a day before heading back on the long drive back to Boston, and the parting was equally as poignant as the first time the boy had clung to Eliot’s neck. 

*** 

The sixth year they were in Portland instead of Boston, and Eliot was in no shape to make the trip.

 He was sporting two bullet holes compliments of his friend General Vance in his request for Eliot to help him track down a terrorist in an afternoon. The trip home from Washington DC had been harrowing enough for Eliot, and he was exhausted. Nate had called a moratorium on jobs for at least a month while Eliot recouped and got his strength back, all of which Eliot insisted wasn’t necessary.

Hardison offered him a ride back to his apartment a week after their return after having gotten together at the pub to celebrate Parker’s birthday.

“I could drive…if you want,” Hardison said into the silence of the car.

“Huh?” Eliot said a little sleepily. He didn’t often let his guard down, and it was a testament to just how tired he was that he was even closing his eyes in the same space with Hardison.

“It’s not that much farther. I could drive, you know. We have plenty of time since Nate’s not taking clients until you’re all healed up.”

Eliot lifted his head a little. “Hardison, what’re you talking about?”

“I just thought you might want to take advantage of the time and spend more than just an afternoon. We could stay a few days. Or you could, I mean. I’ll just…get a hotel or something,” Hardison said.

The easy silence turned icy and Hardison dared a glance at the hard blue gaze that was now fully alert and zeroed in on him from the passenger side of the car. Eliot didn’t need to ask the question.

“Look, man, I was just worried and…okay! I was a little curious, too. Shoot me!”

“I might.”

Hardison flinched inwardly. Eliot had never raised a hand to any one of the team, all threats to Hardison’s well being aside, but there were certain lines most of them knew not to cross and Hardison was under no illusion that he had breached that.

“So…is he the nephew you talked about?” Eliot cut him a look. “Once? A long time ago.”

Eliot stared out the windshield for a minute that, countermanding the laws of physics, lasted three times longer than it should have. “No.”

“Oh-kay.”

They drove the last few blocks in silence. Hardison pulled to the curb and Eliot made to get out in a huff, but dropped back at the last second. He sighed long and low, gave himself a cursory once over, and swore under his breath.

“Be here at six,” he said and got out of the car.

“Okay,” Hardison said solemnly.

“In the morning,” Eliot emphasized. 

Hardison rolled his eyes. “Got it.”

Eliot slammed the door and limped up the stairs to the door to his apartment building.

*** 

Hardison kind of expected a little more shock and fluttering when Anne opened the door to Eliot with his arm still in a sling and leaning on a cane to help him keep his balance until the leg wound had a better chance to heal which the doctor insisted wasn’t going to happen if he didn’t stay off of it. Instead, she bit her lip noticeably against whatever reprimand sprang to her tongue and shot out an arm to catch the now eight year old boy’s momentum as he prepared to rush Eliot from the top of the stairs.

“Whoa, Tyson,” she arrested him with practiced ease and swung him to the side. “I think Eliot’s gonna need some TLC with trip, huh? No wrestling.”

Tyson looked Eliot up and down, piercing blue eyes slightly confused but not missing and details as he took in the arm and the off balance lean. “What did you do to yourself?”

“Got in a fight with somebody bigger than me,” Eliot said with an easy smile and ruffled Tyson’s hair. “Anne, this is Hardison. Hardison, Anne. He works with me.”

“Nice to meet you,” Hardison offered his hand.

“You, too,” she smiled. It was a little sad at the edges. She gestured to Eliot. “Thanks for bringing him.”

“Hey, no problem.”

“So, you here for the afternoon?” she asked.

“Actually…we’re staying a few days,” Eliot said. “If that’s all right?”

“Wow, really!” Tyson exclaimed. 

Anne nodded her approval from behind him, tears glimmering on her lashes. “I’ll make up the beds in the guest room.”

“You don’t need to go to that trouble, Anne,” Eliot said.

“No trouble. For you or your friend,” she said. “I make up the one every time you come, hoping…” She let the thought hang and turned to go downstairs.

“Eliot, can we go to the movies if you’re staying?” Tyson asked. “There’s a new one out I really want to see.”

Hardison watched as Tyson dragged Eliot up the stairs and into the kitchen to sit at the table and plan what they would spend the next days doing. Hardison loitered a minute at the door and then followed Anne downstairs. She was off the main room unfurling a sheet over a double bed. 

“Can I help?” he asked, dropping his bag at the door.

“Sure.” 

Hardison grabbed a corner of the sheet and pulled it taught. “You’ve got a really beautiful boy up there.”

She smiled. It was sad again. “He’s not mine.”

Hardison frowned. “Oh?”

Anne shook her head. “Well, he is, I guess. My husband and I are the only mom and dad he’ll ever know. That’s the way he wants it.”

“Who wants it?”

She looked up at him, a little frown playing at her brow. “He hasn’t told you?”

“Sorry?” Hardison was getting confused.

She cast a glance upward at an excited outburst from Tyson and then looked back at Hardison, hugging a pillow across her stomach. “Tyson is Eliot’s son.”

“Holy shit…”

“Mom! Mom, can Eliot and I go to the mall? He said he’d take me to the matinee of Transformers, and we could look at the Goalie pads I wanted for my birthday for the hockey team next year.” Tyson was hanging excitedly over the stair railing, feet doing a little tap dance on the linoleum entryway, and Hardison felt like he’d been hit with a seventy pound sledge. Blue eyes glinted in the sunlight filtering through the front door, sharp and gleaming. Dark hair fell unruly, longer than most boys kept it, over one eye and was brushed back impatiently by hands that were young yet, but wide and strong and fit for fighting.

Eliot descended slowly behind Tyson, grinning one of those rare relaxed grins that Hardison imagined had graced his features long ago, one that he now wished whole heartedly Tyson would grow up wearing all his long life. 

“Jesus…” He blew out a breath.

Eliot spied his bugged out stare and lifted a brief brow but was distracted when Tyson began another round of begging.

“Please, mom!”

“All right! All right!” Anne laughed, tossing the pillow on the bed. She slid a look at Hardison and let it slip away quickly when he shook himself and forced a smile.

“I think Eliot is out for the count on driving, little man,” Hardison said. “How about I give the two of you a lift?”

“Really? Thanks, Mr. Hardison!” 

“Alec, little man. Just Alec.”

Tyson grinned and whipped around to grab his jacket. Hardison picked up his bag and started up the stairs. Eliot watched him climb. 

“Everything all right, Hardison?”

Hardison fought against the urge to look back at Anne. “Yeah, man. Yeah. Everything’s fine. I was just helping Anne make our beds.”

“Okay.”

*** 

Hardison found a hole in the wall electronics store down the street from the mall while Eliot and Tyson spent the day in the theatre and the sporting goods store. They came out at the appointed meeting time laden with bags that Hardison was sure included a hell of a lot more than just the promised pads for hockey.

Anne had fixed a dinner of spaghetti casserole and fruit salad and homemade french bread. Hardison hadn’t had anything like it since his Nana cooked. Eliot tended toward more exotic and varied dishes in his kitchen. The girls were off studying right after dinner, Tyson was sent to get his shower, and Mark excused himself after cleaning up the kitchen to go work on a new case in his study.

“Lawyer?” Hardison asked

“Yes.” Anne smiled after him. “He works for the state, so there’s not much money in it, but it makes him feel good after he’s gotten one more slime ball off the streets.”

Eliot leaned back in his chair and sipped his beer, stretching out his bad leg in front him. He smiled softly at Anne beneath his lashes.

“I hope he didn’t run you ragged today, brother,” Anne said quietly.

“No, sis,” Eliot said, looking over at Hardison instead of her. “He was fine. We had a lot of fun.”

Hardison read everything he needed to in that look. This was the sister they all assumed he had but never got talked about. And he wanted it kept that way. Eliot had his reasons—he had reasons for everything—but he wanted his family kept away from the reality of his life in every way. Compartmentalized and neatly packaged, buffered from the violence that surrounded him almost every day, so they would stay pristine and undamaged; so he had somewhere to go to escape when he needed to.

Hardison nodded a silent promise to do just that. 

Eliot looked back at Anne, his face relaxing. “I might have over done it just a bit, though.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve kind have come to expect that,” she said.

“I did get a few things for Elly and Bella. I hope they like them,” he said a little sheepishly.

“Eliot, you don’t have to do that. You do enough.”

“No.” Eliot looked down into the amber, gently bubbling liquid in his glass. “Nor nearly enough.”

*** 

Hardison lay in the dark later that night after they had sat and played a game of Uno with Anne and Tyson and Bella, the younger sister, after she finished her homework, and listened to Eliot trying to find a comfortable position on the small bed. He was a small man, so it had surprised Hardison to find he slept in a king sized bed; but he tended to sprawl when he slept. He managed to commandeer the entire couch at Nate’s when he napped, arms flung over the back and pillows, legs spread and flopped over the cushions and arm.

“Eliot, you all right?” Hardison asked quietly.

He heard a rustling and a bitten moan, then, “Yeah. Fine.”

Hardison rolled his eyes in the dark and got out of bed, moved the small nightstand between them and pushed his bed over beside Eliot’s. 

“What the hell’re you doing, Hardison?” Eliot hissed.

“Would you relax, man. Just…shut up and sprawl out.” Hardison pulled one of the quilts off the bed and grabbed a spare pillow off the top closet shelf he’d seen earlier when he had helped Anne make the bed.

“Where’re you gonna sleep?” Eliot asked.

“On the floor.” Hardison spread out the quilt and lay down. “It wouldn’t be the first time. I don’t mind. Really, it’s okay. Just get some sleep.”

He listened for a few minutes while Eliot situated himself across the extra mattress. It still wasn’t ideal, but it was a lot better. Hardison finally heard a quiet sigh of near contentment and smiled in the dark.

He was just starting to drift off when Eliot’s soft voice brought him back to the surface.

“She told you didn’t she?”

Hardison wasn’t sure how to answer. He didn’t want Anne to get any flack for having told him anything she shouldn’t, and he didn’t want to disturb the status quo here. He wasn’t here to pass judgment. In fact, he was starting to feel Nate had been right from the very beginning. He shouldn’t be here at all. By coming here, he was dragging Eliot’s real life into his hermetically sealed, self built, fantasy world. The only place he had to go to get away from the nightmare of who he thought he was, and Hardison was ruining it by putting those worlds on a collision course.

But he could never lie to Eliot.

“Yeah, man, she did.”

Another long sigh. Not irritated, but lost. Like he was finally accepting the end of something he had been trying to hold onto for too long.

“I’m not gonna tell anyone, Eliot,” Hardison said earnestly, sitting up on his elbows. “I swear. Not Nate, not Parker, nobody. This is your business, man, and I’m…I’m real sorry I poked around in it.”

“It’s…okay, Hardison.”

Silence fell and Hardison finally dropped back on his pillow.

“He has no idea who I am.”

Hardison rolled to his side to face Eliot who was laying from corner to corner on the mattresses, leg propped against a pillow, staring up at the ceiling. “‘Uncle’ Eliot, huh?”

Eliot huffed a sad laugh. “Not even that. I’m just a guy who shows up for an afternoon out of a year and showers him with gifts and attention and then mysteriously drives away into the sunset. I’m not even sure what Anne tells him if he asks about me, or if he asks. Not the truth, that’s for sure.”

“Where…” Hardison hesitated. “Where did he come from, Eliot?”

Eliot breathed in deeply, but said nothing, and Hardison was about to roll back over, chalking it up to another thing about Eliot he would never know, when he spoke,

“It was a couple years before Dubenich hired me. I was on a job, just a solo thing, in Montana. She was a waitress. Her name was Fraya. Slavic or somethin’, I think. She was beautiful. We hit it off and I went home to her place. Little ranch outside of town she lived on with her father. Had a few horses. 

“Anyway, I finished the job, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Kind of reminded me of Aimee a little, maybe. I went back. Stayed a few days, stayed a couple weeks. Wound up staying about six months.” He sighed, long and deep, again. He lifted an arm to cover his face. “I got the itch, though. It wouldn’t ever go away. I think she knew that. I think she knew about the baby before I left, too, but…she knew me so well, she didn’t tell me.”

“What happened?” Hardison prompted quietly into the silence that fell after a few minutes.

“I screwed up,” Eliot said flatly. “I never stay any place that long, and there’s a reason. That way no one ever thinks they can use anyone I know as leverage against me…because I don’t know anyone.

“Well, about six months before you guys, before Dubenich, I caught wind of a bounty on my head from an old client—thought I’d screwed him over—so I set out to find the hunter before he found me. Tracked him up to Montana. Didn’t get there in time.”

Hardison slapped a hand over his mouth to catch the sudden gasp. Eliot ignored it, lifted his arm off his face and rubbed at his temples like he could rub out the memories there. “The place was burned to the ground, still smokin’ from the fire two nights before. Gregor, her dad, died trying to get the horses out of the barn. Fraya…she got the baby out of the house, but died of smoke inhalation a few hours later I was told.”

“Did you get the guy?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Hardison could hear the wolfish toothy grin in Eliot’s voice. It made his spine itch and adrenaline hiccup in his system.

“I got that guy, and the guy who hired him,” Eliot continued. “I came back a couple weeks later. A family from the local church was taking care of the baby. I told them who I was. They didn’t remember me specifically, but they did remember a drifter who’d stayed with the family for a while late the last year. They had kids of their own and one more was going to be a burden, so they let me take him. I told them about my sister and her kids and promised he’d be taken care of.”

“He’s been with Anne ever since?”

“Yup. So far as he knows, they’re his real folks.” Eliot paused. “He’ll never know otherwise, if I have any say in it.”

Hardison nodded slowly in the dark. “No, man. He won’t,” he promised.

 ***

Hardison didn’t mention the trip to Oklahoma the next year, but round about that time Eliot told Nate he’d be back in a few days, tossed his truck keys at Hardison, and walked out the door. 

It continued like that over the next nine years. After Nate and Sophie went off on their own, Hardison still went with Eliot, telling Parker it was a guy thing, and she’d just have to occupy her time stealing the most recent acquisition of the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts, or something, while they were gone. Which she did, though she always put it back the next year in exchange for the new one.

*** 

The last year Hardison went down to Oklahoma, he went alone.

He was still driving Eliot’s truck. It didn’t feel right to make the trip in any other vehicle for some reason. He’d told Parker he’d explain when he got back. Everything. He finally could. 

There was a box on the seat beside him. Not much in it. Just a few books Eliot had around the apartment, some of his cooking knives, a few pairs of jeans and some t-shirts, and his favorite leather jacket. Everything was just about the right size for Tyson. The majority of what Eliot had to offer, Hardison had already transferred over to a trust fund for Tyson with Anne and Mark’s names on it. It would take care of college for all the kids and then some, though Hardison doubted Anne would let it be used for anyone except Tyson even if Eliot never would have objected otherwise.

He pulled in around dinner time, and could hear excited voices inside the house with the truck windows down. He shook his head, swore under his breath and grabbed the box out of the passenger seat. The front door was flung open as Hardison slid out of the driver’s seat.

“Hey, mom! Eliot’s here!” Tyson was yelling over his shoulder. 

Hardison had to do a double take. The boy had filled out in his first year of college. He was Eliot all over, the way he would have been twenty-odd years ago. Hard jaw, softened by his excited grin, piercing eyes that were clear and bright and unshadowed; just the way his dad had wanted. Long hair, escaping the band he’d used to tie most of it back with. Hardison’s heart pounded in his chest so hard it ached. He readjusted the box under his arm and swiped quickly at his eyes.

Tyson turned back, pushing open the screen door. “Hey, Alec!” But his eyes clouded a little and dimmed with confusion when he didn’t see Eliot sauntering up the walk behind him. He spied the box, then lifted his gaze to Hardison’s face.

Anne appeared behind Tyson’s shoulder. Hardison had thought about calling ahead, warning her, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do something like this over the phone. They deserved better.

“Alec, it’s good to see you,” she said quietly, eyes never leaving the box, starting to water as comprehension crept inexorably over her.

“Anne. Tyson. I—,” Hardison choked a little, and tried again. “I brought…some things for you.”

“Please,” Anne whispered, putting a hand on Tyson’s shoulder to draw him back. “Come inside.”

“Alec, where’s Eliot?” Tyson asked, trailing them to the kitchen where Anne poured coffee and Hardison set the box on the table reverently. Tyson grabbed his shoulder, spun him. He was strong. Just like his dad.

“Tyson!” Anne said sharply. 

He backed off a step. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I just…” He trailed off, and Hardison put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, little man.”

They sat down with coffee. Anne and Tyson facing Hardison across the table.

“Mark’s still at work. The girl’s are away at college,” Anne said in way of permission. “Tyson came home special this weekend.”

Hardison nodded. It was all he could do. He had no idea how to do this, had never expected that he would have to, but Eliot had made him promise. 

He cleared his throat roughly and dug a small box out of his pocket. He pushed it across the table to Tyson. “Eliot promised…” Hardison took a breath. “He promised he would protect us ‘till his dyin’ day.” He closed his eyes against the welling of more tears. Breathed in through his nose. “He did just exactly that.”

Tyson silently pulled the box toward him, biting the inside of his lip as Hardison’s words settled home in his brain. Beside him, Anne covered her face and cried quietly. He flipped up the lid on the tin box and reached in and pulled out a set of dog tags.

Eliot hadn’t worn them in years. He said he felt like he didn’t deserve them anymore after the things he’d done, but he wanted Tyson to have them. Hardison was delivering on the promise.

Tyson held them suspended in the dying afternoon light. They turned back and forth and Hardison caught the name stamped in small regular letters. ‘Eliot Tyson Spencer’ He’d never known Eliot’s middle name before.

“He wanted you to have whatever was left,” Hardison continued quietly. He pushed the bigger box forward. “He asked to be cremated. Th—the ashes are…” Hardison gestured weakly to the box. “He wanted to be with his family.”

Tyson slowly dropped the tags into the cup of his broad palm and curled his fingers tightly around them. He looked up at Hardison, eyes red, but jaw set firmly. “Alec. Who was my dad?”

Hardison broke then. Anne got up and came around the table and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck, giving him something to hold onto. He struggled to regain his composure, looking up at Tyson through bleary eyes.

“Your dad was…a good man. He was good and…loyal. Almost to a fault. He loved you. So much. He loved all of us.” 

_And it killed him!_ Hardison wanted to scream the last but knew it wouldn’t help anything and it would never bring Eliot back. Eliot would never agree with Hardison’s eulogy. He never could get past the shadows cast by all the harm he’d done in his life. He didn’t really believe in redemption. If he had, he probably wouldn’t have tried as hard as he did. The world, at least Hardison’s world, would be a whole lot darker and more empty for his loss. He couldn’t imagine sleeping soundly through another night ever again. Eliot would probably reprimand him for that, too, telling Hardison that it was men like Eliot that gave the bogey man a bad rap.

But for all the blood he might have shed in the past, Eliot Spencer was the best of men. He had gone just exactly how he wanted to go. Protecting those he loved the most.


End file.
